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the new black
Smart, grounded, and lyrical, Evie Shockley's the new black integrates powerful ideas about "blackness," past and present, through the medium of beautifully crafted verse. the new black sees our racial past inevitably shaping our contemporary moment, but struggles to remember and reckon with the impact of generational shifts: what seemed impossible to people not many years ago--for example, the election of an African American president--will have always been a part of the world of children born in the new millennium. All of the poems here, whether sonnet, mesostic, or deconstructed blues, exhibit a formal flair. They speak to the changes we have experienced as a society in the last few decades--changes that often challenge our past strategies for resisting racism and, for African Americans, ways of relating to one another. The poems embrace a formal ambiguity that echoes the uncertainty these shifts produce, while reveling in language play that enables readers to "laugh to keep from crying." They move through nostalgia, even as they insist on being alive to the present and point longingly towards possible futures.
128 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2011
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About the author
Evie Shockley
30 books50 followersBorn and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, poet Evie Shockley earned a BA at Northwestern University, a JD at the University of Michigan, and a PhD in English literature at Duke University.
(from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/e...)
(from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/e...)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
December 24, 2013
In reading these poems, astonishing in their range of subject and tone, you know you're in the presence of a remarkable intelligence. Some of them explode in your face, some dance you around the floor, others lead you into the hall where they plant a kiss on your lips. A rare combination of intellectual laser point exactitude and sensual beauty--how does she do it? How? I read one or two or five in a sitting, and my head rings with these poems all day. There are erotic poems, political ones, confessional. Some deliver stinging social critique, others confront the eternal. Some rough and raw as a roadside diner, others supremely polished, verbally acrobatic. There are a nest of forms, heights and depths, small personal details and grand historic scope. Here's one, but just know--every poem is quite, quite different from every other--yet the intelligence and deeply felt life is the same through all the poems.
Sometimes a book of poems is a single experience. Others become a relationship of continuing experiences. I know one reading of The New Black will only be the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship.
Here's one I liked in the personal mode:
a matter of balance
it's not a goodbye fuck
unless you both know it.
this is a matter of balance.
if either of you is oblivious
it's a dangling fuck--as with
syntax--one of you looking
forward to something
that simply isn't coming.
it's not a goodbye fuck
if it's not good. don't name
it--paint 'love' and 'forever'
silently on each other's skin
with amnesiac fingertips.
at its best, its like having
your favorite meal, savoring
the sweet and salt, knowing
there's ground glass in
every bite, take in greedy
mouthfuls, eating till your
tongue is a beach, a raw,
glittering blanket of sand
with a red, metallic-tasting
ocean slowly overwhelming
the whole fucking thing.
Sometimes a book of poems is a single experience. Others become a relationship of continuing experiences. I know one reading of The New Black will only be the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship.
Here's one I liked in the personal mode:
a matter of balance
it's not a goodbye fuck
unless you both know it.
this is a matter of balance.
if either of you is oblivious
it's a dangling fuck--as with
syntax--one of you looking
forward to something
that simply isn't coming.
it's not a goodbye fuck
if it's not good. don't name
it--paint 'love' and 'forever'
silently on each other's skin
with amnesiac fingertips.
at its best, its like having
your favorite meal, savoring
the sweet and salt, knowing
there's ground glass in
every bite, take in greedy
mouthfuls, eating till your
tongue is a beach, a raw,
glittering blanket of sand
with a red, metallic-tasting
ocean slowly overwhelming
the whole fucking thing.
January 20, 2011
I read this book in manuscript form, and wrote one of the blurbs:
Evie Shockley’s the new black picks up where her excellent premiere collection, a half-red sea, left off, an ongoing tribute to her ancestors, her poetic, political, and cultural heroes. These poems are rigorous and smart, alternately incisive and tender, and always so courageous. With a keen and critical eye, Shockley mines the everyday for its simple poetic abundance, and presents to us its ironies, its moments of wisdom, joy, and outrage, the things which flow “in the veins, unnoticed as a pulse.”
Evie Shockley’s the new black picks up where her excellent premiere collection, a half-red sea, left off, an ongoing tribute to her ancestors, her poetic, political, and cultural heroes. These poems are rigorous and smart, alternately incisive and tender, and always so courageous. With a keen and critical eye, Shockley mines the everyday for its simple poetic abundance, and presents to us its ironies, its moments of wisdom, joy, and outrage, the things which flow “in the veins, unnoticed as a pulse.”
June 27, 2014
This was a 3.5 read for me.
Overall I enjoyed this poetry collection. The diversity of forms was appealing to me, and so was not sure what surprise was waiting for me on the next page. As with collections, some I really enjoyed, some were okay, and a couple I had to read a couple of times to get the full meaning.
A couple of my favorites from this collection are:
mesostics from the american grammar book
x marks the spot
dependencies
Overall I enjoyed this poetry collection. The diversity of forms was appealing to me, and so was not sure what surprise was waiting for me on the next page. As with collections, some I really enjoyed, some were okay, and a couple I had to read a couple of times to get the full meaning.
A couple of my favorites from this collection are:
mesostics from the american grammar book
x marks the spot
dependencies
September 9, 2011
I found the quality of poems very uneven. Some were to die for: tight, razor blade stanzas that left me without breath, while others seemed merely clever tricks, written quickly and left unedited. I could see a brilliant collection restless inside this work, but I did not feel it was there yet. Not yet.
March 9, 2013
Shockley does some interesting things with form and dialogue with other writers, but her poems suffer at times for their politics being too transparent. I'm not against political poetry except when the art of the poem suffers because of the desire to get a message out, and that happens in some instances here. Fortunately, there is also a lot of stunning language and excellent writing.
December 20, 2016
more like 2.75 - some of them were really great, some of them not.
June 23, 2020
favorites:
“Dependencies”
”Where you are planted”
“Because there should be love”
“Quiet as it’s kept”
“Explosives”
“Dependencies”
”Where you are planted”
“Because there should be love”
“Quiet as it’s kept”
“Explosives”
August 22, 2021
Video review https://youtu.be/j4jGfNsZ8sE
February 5, 2012
Skimming through the pages of /the new black/, I thought, “Hey, this looks like it will try to challenge my understanding of structure.” It certainly did so, and while I appreciate the experiment in form that Shockley attempts, I cannot say that her content works. To be blunt, a good half of the content is exactly what I hate about modern poetry: valuing abstraction over concrete examples, “list” poetry that just fumbles around with random words strung together, and purposeful vagary in an effort to sounds poetic. The other half of the poems however, break through these barriers, and I have really latched on to those.
Starting with those that work, pieces like “a matter of balance,” “in a non-subjunctive mood,” and even most of “the farewell letters” all are convincing because of the contextual grounding they provide and the metaphors that they use (such as “amnesiac fingertips”). Compare that with poems like “clare’s song” (listing words, even in an effort to tell a story, is not in any way artistic to me), “explosives” (I love playing with staggered words like this for “bombs,” but nothing actually happens here), “the cold” (is a waste of paper artistic?), and “where’s carolina,” (not as bad as a list poem, but still filled with unclear images that the reader is forced to see without context).
Granted, some of the pieces that don’t work are ones that Shockley was using to experiment with form, and that is unfortunate, because I think the structures she plays with have real value. “x marks the spot” is a wonderfully conceived idea, “dependencies” exemplifies its title in each stanza, and the syllogism form of “you can’t deny it” I like a lot more than I thought I might. The plays with parenthesis and colons I am still unsure about; I think that changes in punctuation are more difficult to pull off than manipulating the shape of a poem because punctuation is supposed to lend understanding, not confusion.
At any rate, this is a large collection of experimental ideas, and I have to give mad props to her dedication and courage.
Starting with those that work, pieces like “a matter of balance,” “in a non-subjunctive mood,” and even most of “the farewell letters” all are convincing because of the contextual grounding they provide and the metaphors that they use (such as “amnesiac fingertips”). Compare that with poems like “clare’s song” (listing words, even in an effort to tell a story, is not in any way artistic to me), “explosives” (I love playing with staggered words like this for “bombs,” but nothing actually happens here), “the cold” (is a waste of paper artistic?), and “where’s carolina,” (not as bad as a list poem, but still filled with unclear images that the reader is forced to see without context).
Granted, some of the pieces that don’t work are ones that Shockley was using to experiment with form, and that is unfortunate, because I think the structures she plays with have real value. “x marks the spot” is a wonderfully conceived idea, “dependencies” exemplifies its title in each stanza, and the syllogism form of “you can’t deny it” I like a lot more than I thought I might. The plays with parenthesis and colons I am still unsure about; I think that changes in punctuation are more difficult to pull off than manipulating the shape of a poem because punctuation is supposed to lend understanding, not confusion.
At any rate, this is a large collection of experimental ideas, and I have to give mad props to her dedication and courage.
December 25, 2019
**4.5 stars**
I was so engrossed by this collection that I had to stop myself from reading the entire thing in one sitting in order to savor it a bit more. Shockley's poetry is formally inventive and linguistically playful, appealing to readers who enjoy experimental/avant-garde poetry. One of the things I most enjoyed about this text is the fact that no two poems looked exactly the same structurally/formally speaking and I was introduced to new experimental forms I had never before encountered. In addition, Shockley's subjects range from the historical (Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Saartjie Baartman) to the literary (Nella Larsen's Passing and Quicksand, Toni Morrison's work) to the contemporary (the election of Barack Obama, his presidency, what it means to be African American in today's society) and will satisfy readers like myself who have a good grounding in African American history and culture and who are curious to learn more about the references and allusions interwoven throughout the collection. In all, I found these poems if not always immediately accessible, certainly approachable with a little patience and curiosity and perhaps a Google search or two. Highly recommend.
I was so engrossed by this collection that I had to stop myself from reading the entire thing in one sitting in order to savor it a bit more. Shockley's poetry is formally inventive and linguistically playful, appealing to readers who enjoy experimental/avant-garde poetry. One of the things I most enjoyed about this text is the fact that no two poems looked exactly the same structurally/formally speaking and I was introduced to new experimental forms I had never before encountered. In addition, Shockley's subjects range from the historical (Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Saartjie Baartman) to the literary (Nella Larsen's Passing and Quicksand, Toni Morrison's work) to the contemporary (the election of Barack Obama, his presidency, what it means to be African American in today's society) and will satisfy readers like myself who have a good grounding in African American history and culture and who are curious to learn more about the references and allusions interwoven throughout the collection. In all, I found these poems if not always immediately accessible, certainly approachable with a little patience and curiosity and perhaps a Google search or two. Highly recommend.
October 24, 2012
A wonderfully inventive collection of poetry from Evie Shockley that interrogates where America is now in its negotiation of race by weighing the present against the long legacy of our collective past. Shockley is humorous, intimate, and endlessly creative in her use of form to render history--in both the communal and individual senses--alive through style and imagination.
September 27, 2013
Don't trust my judgement on this. I enjoyed some of the poems, but many of them went over my head, as sometimes I don't "get" the mechanics in poetry. Nice collection, though. I especially love what it stands for it.
July 27, 2011
I love the way Evie plays with form. It's a restless (in a good sense) energetic book.
May 1, 2013
Supberb book of well crafted poetry. Beautiful imagery, languages and form choices. A must-read.
September 12, 2015
I enjoyed it and she's a talented writer, but none of the poems stuck with me. So 3 stars.
May 2, 2022
Just ok.
March 8, 2024
Hello, y'all. So, I recently gave this book 3 stars, which I still feel was proportional to my actual enjoyment and not a terrible judge of its quality. There are poems in here that are 5-star poems and a few that are 2-star poems, with most falling in that 3-to-4-star range.
However, I believe I was initially unfair to it. Upon discussing more with my peers in a poetry workshop I am in, I looked deeper at poems I had previously thought of as middle-of-the-road and realized that I missed the depth in them. In part, that is because the era this book came out is very much the past for me—I am actually quite well informed on many historical and political topics, but that meant that some of the *emotional* significance that I would have received reading this has faded. Nevertheless, upon reflecting more upon some poems and finding either more depth I had overlooked or simply spending some time to appreciate them, I realized a lot of the poems were better than I thought.
This review so far has been too full of qualifiers. Here's more of a traditional review! I have to give mad props for the diversity of different styles, poetic forms, mediums, and more in this book. It is extremely inventive and creative! Did every swing hit for me? No. But some hit hard, and I have to admire the experimentation. It also does not strike me as a "avant-garde because the author can't write normal poetry"-type book—far from it. Rather, Evie Shockley boasts an outright mastery of "traditional" poetry, as seen by some of the less experimental poems. In terms of negatives, I did not love her poetic voice, but that is a matter of personal taste. It felt a bit too blatant and tell-y of the political messages she espoused. I love political poetry and I am not even necessarily a critic of her messages, but I can recognize good and bad political poetry, and there is some of both in here. Sometimes it is impactful, other times it is preachy or worse, predictable. Other times, she hits you with a really interesting use of sound or shape and I just have to applaud it. I also do think that the collection is too long and it would be superior if some of the worse poems were edited out (I did *not* like the Farewell Letters or any of the Frederick Douglas poems), but some of the great poems would be lost by editing, so who knows.
Would I recommend this book? Not particularly, as I would supplement in other poetry collections I have enjoyed more. But I also would not unrecommend it. That places it in 3-stars for me, but I think it earns 4-stars in a more objective sense due to making big decisions and due to having plenty of very solid poetry throughout.
However, I believe I was initially unfair to it. Upon discussing more with my peers in a poetry workshop I am in, I looked deeper at poems I had previously thought of as middle-of-the-road and realized that I missed the depth in them. In part, that is because the era this book came out is very much the past for me—I am actually quite well informed on many historical and political topics, but that meant that some of the *emotional* significance that I would have received reading this has faded. Nevertheless, upon reflecting more upon some poems and finding either more depth I had overlooked or simply spending some time to appreciate them, I realized a lot of the poems were better than I thought.
This review so far has been too full of qualifiers. Here's more of a traditional review! I have to give mad props for the diversity of different styles, poetic forms, mediums, and more in this book. It is extremely inventive and creative! Did every swing hit for me? No. But some hit hard, and I have to admire the experimentation. It also does not strike me as a "avant-garde because the author can't write normal poetry"-type book—far from it. Rather, Evie Shockley boasts an outright mastery of "traditional" poetry, as seen by some of the less experimental poems. In terms of negatives, I did not love her poetic voice, but that is a matter of personal taste. It felt a bit too blatant and tell-y of the political messages she espoused. I love political poetry and I am not even necessarily a critic of her messages, but I can recognize good and bad political poetry, and there is some of both in here. Sometimes it is impactful, other times it is preachy or worse, predictable. Other times, she hits you with a really interesting use of sound or shape and I just have to applaud it. I also do think that the collection is too long and it would be superior if some of the worse poems were edited out (I did *not* like the Farewell Letters or any of the Frederick Douglas poems), but some of the great poems would be lost by editing, so who knows.
Would I recommend this book? Not particularly, as I would supplement in other poetry collections I have enjoyed more. But I also would not unrecommend it. That places it in 3-stars for me, but I think it earns 4-stars in a more objective sense due to making big decisions and due to having plenty of very solid poetry throughout.
June 6, 2020
Focused, powerful, diverse group of poems. Shockley has the ability to be both brief and punchy & poetically long-winded. So ready to read Shockley's next poetry book, Semiautomatic.
I know my poetry reviews are usually more brief, but I feel I can't write this review without also mentioning George Floyd. And Breanna Taylor, and Ahmad Arbery, and the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Black men & women terrorized by the state, by the police, by white supremacy. I cannot pretend to understand what it is like to be Black in this country, especially right now, but I know that this is a time of great pain, and also a time in which the world is demanding change right now, against a system that is designed to be antiblack.
Claiming you're "not racist" is not enough. We have to be actively antiracist, and part of that work of becoming actively antiracist is, for allies, critically examining the racial privileges we have, the complicity we hold in perpetuating white supremacy, the antiblackness rampant in our own communities and lives that we've often failed to stand properly against. I know that, as part of that work of critical personal examination, many have shared important critical race texts. I would also say that this book, and other works of poetry (like Claudia Rankine's Citizen, which I've also seen on several reading lists) are important works to read and digest. Reading is not enough - we need action, but reading & reflection is one component of the important personal work that is required to combat racism.
I know my poetry reviews are usually more brief, but I feel I can't write this review without also mentioning George Floyd. And Breanna Taylor, and Ahmad Arbery, and the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Black men & women terrorized by the state, by the police, by white supremacy. I cannot pretend to understand what it is like to be Black in this country, especially right now, but I know that this is a time of great pain, and also a time in which the world is demanding change right now, against a system that is designed to be antiblack.
Claiming you're "not racist" is not enough. We have to be actively antiracist, and part of that work of becoming actively antiracist is, for allies, critically examining the racial privileges we have, the complicity we hold in perpetuating white supremacy, the antiblackness rampant in our own communities and lives that we've often failed to stand properly against. I know that, as part of that work of critical personal examination, many have shared important critical race texts. I would also say that this book, and other works of poetry (like Claudia Rankine's Citizen, which I've also seen on several reading lists) are important works to read and digest. Reading is not enough - we need action, but reading & reflection is one component of the important personal work that is required to combat racism.
February 21, 2021
A fascinating and innovative book of poems of various forms, styles and subjects. I love the large format of the book, the visual poetry and the inclusion of some illustrations. I had to take time with the poems. The rhythms and sounds are amazing. “it’s all about belonging: even now, who belongs where is often based on who/ belonged to whom. i sometimes wonder how i get away with living while black.”
April 12, 2023
dear ink jet,
black fast. greasy lightning.
won't smear. won't rub off.
defense: a visual screen: ask
an octopus (bioaquadooloop).
footprints faster than a speed-
ing bully, tracking dirt all
over the page. make every
word count. one. two. iamb.
octoroon. half-breed. mutt.
mulatto. why are there so few
hybrids on the road? because
they can't reproduce. trochee
choking okay mocha. ebony,
by contrast, says so much.
(p89)
black fast. greasy lightning.
won't smear. won't rub off.
defense: a visual screen: ask
an octopus (bioaquadooloop).
footprints faster than a speed-
ing bully, tracking dirt all
over the page. make every
word count. one. two. iamb.
octoroon. half-breed. mutt.
mulatto. why are there so few
hybrids on the road? because
they can't reproduce. trochee
choking okay mocha. ebony,
by contrast, says so much.
(p89)
March 16, 2021
This is one of those collections from which many of my professors have drawn individual poems for study. So, I went in already admiring the poet and their work. That being said, while I enjoyed all the poems I already knew, I found a deeper appreciation and love for this collection in all those poems I had yet encountered.
January 15, 2018
I loved the wordplay and formal inventiveness, although the etymological stuff seemed to devolve slightly to a kind of less weighty stream-of-consciousness riffing in the final section. Overall, an invigorating and masterful collection.
Read
May 24, 2022i’m just flabbergasted by the sheer number of forms in this book—the ghazals and ekphrasis and acrostics and sestinas and and and… all done well and the whole thing hanging together through the very differences from poem to poem, maintaining lyricism and direct honesty. i liked it a lot
July 16, 2023
I am so glad I read these poems. They sing, they move, they dance, they play, they confront, they challenge, they invite the reader into not only the world of the poet, but into the world. It is brilliant. It is honest. And this is what I want from poems. Beautiful.
November 24, 2018
4.5,really brilliant writing and unique style
September 10, 2019
Oof. Lots of effort here down to the
exhausting :: formatting
choices
exhausting :: formatting
choices
June 2, 2020
Read in Experimental Poetry reading group.
July 24, 2020
I really appreciate Evie Shockley's style of writing. It definitely reminds me of poets from the 1970s Black Arts Movement. I will be adding her book to my collection.
March 6, 2017
I loved how wildly experimental this book was, often while using traditional forms in nontraditional ways. I appreciated how frank and artful her discussions of race and politics were. My students absolutely loved this book from beginning to end.
There were some brief moments where, for me, the wordplay fell a little flat, especially when compared to the best poems within the book.
That said, I would definitely recommend this book, especially for someone who is interested in seeing poetry pushed to its limits, and I would not hesitant to read another collection by this poet.
There were some brief moments where, for me, the wordplay fell a little flat, especially when compared to the best poems within the book.
That said, I would definitely recommend this book, especially for someone who is interested in seeing poetry pushed to its limits, and I would not hesitant to read another collection by this poet.
August 24, 2015
The only reason this didn't get five stars is because there wasn't that one poem that stood out from the rest for me.
Shockley does some interesting things with structure and form. Her social commentary is on fleek.
Shockley does some interesting things with structure and form. Her social commentary is on fleek.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews